May 1, 2014

Last month, psychologist James Thompson hosted a scientific conference for researchers interested in IQ and human biodiversity topics at an undisclosed location in Europe. I advised him last year to keep arrangements non-public because a somewhat similar conference a decade-and-a-half ago was broken up by a mob of anti-science fanatics.

I would have liked to have attended, but I can't afford trips to Europe.

22 comments:

Anonymous
said...

OT: the Ukrainian military began attacking the town of Slavyansk with battle helicopters and the like. There are parallels to the 08/08/08 Ossetian War that Steve has written about. Don't know if Russia will respond the same way as then.

While most academic psychologists and cognitive scientists publicly and even privately deny the importance of intelligence or, heaven forbid, any differences between groups, they certainly don't act like it doesn't matter when it's time to select graduate student applicants to their lab. Then GREs are being pored over, and anyone with less than stellar GREs (less than 650-700, even 750 per section for the top programs) doesn't stand of a chance of being admitted.

It's funny how intelligence matters then, when you are selecting people who are going to be working in your lab for several years and can boost or kill your productivity.

I second what MC said. People give more to fundraising drives for specific goals, rather than to general funds. Even though the general fund in this case has rather more important goals, i.e. to keep Steve and family fed.

Also agreed w/ MC.Because this is a thread about psychology, I'll give you this tidbit for free: if you tell me *what* (conferences) it's more effective than telling me *how* (eg the standard paypal/VDARE w/ your name on it) during the normal cup rattles

...they certainly don't act like it doesn't matter when it's time to select graduate student applicants to their lab.

I'll do one better. Some STEM graduate programs are renowned for packing in lots of "less equally diverse" diversity types because they have a reputation for working extremely hard, tend to do excellent, high quality work and not complain at all about the work load and allegedly don't mind when their advisors take much of the credit for their ideas at academic conferences and in publications (but hey, they signed up for the modern day apprenticeship, suck it up, boys).

And at these programs, there is zero, none, of the "more equally diverse" diversity types.

To MC, SFnonmonk & anon10:31If Steve tells you *what*, "such and such" "specific" conferences then those conferences get targeted. The hosting hotel cancelled one after threats of demonstrations & boycotts.Anyway, it was kind of the point of his post.

"Once someone has reached an IQ of somewhere around 120, having additional IQ points doesn't seem to translate into any measurable real world advantage."

Sorry, Heckman re-analyzed some of the Terman super-IQ data and found that those with super-IQs (150+)do, in fact, generally outperform those with IQs of 120-135. He found that --surprise--conscientiousness matters, too.

It seems to me that, once you get up to an IQ of 130 or so, you can probably learn to do one thing that consistently pays well: doctor, lawyer, etc.

Extra IQ points beyond that don't open up better-paying jobs. Being smarter might make those jobs easier, or make it possible for you to learn multiple disciplines -- medicine and law, for instance -- but that doesn't translate into much more income because there are only so many hours in the day.

Oddly enough I checked out Psychological Comments just last week. I decided not to put it in my favorites list. It didn't make the cut.

I gave up on psychology around 1969. It seemed to me that the evidence was mostly in on the subject of intelligence. But the public continued to resist. So I decided to just wait until they came around.

When I looked at 'Psychological Comments' last week it was deja vú all over again. Thompson was still battling the same stupid objections I had grown tired of nearly half a century earlier.

"Once someone has reached an IQ of somewhere around 120, having additional IQ points doesn't seem to translate into any measurable real world advantage."

I don't know where that came from, but Steven Hsu (no link, somewhere here though) either did the research himself or covered someone else's, but no, it makes a difference all the way up. Measured in some form of citation power iirc.

Speaking of intelligence, from an article yesterday by David Gergen about Obama:

"But it has now become equally puzzling why he has not become more sure-footed in foreign affairs. He is one of the brightest men ever to occupy the office, and yet his learning curve has been among the flattest. Talking to players on the world stage -- most of whom still want him to succeed -- one finds them genuinely rattled, worried about a lack of national will and operational competence."

Oddly enough, that conference you were talking about probably would've gone off okay today since the usual suspects wouldn't know how to drive to get there (it was out on Eastern Shore instead of in a city or college town).

But it has now become equally puzzling why he has not become more sure-footed in foreign affairs. He is one of the brightest men ever to occupy the office, and yet his learning curve has been among the flattest.

Anything that requires thinking a few degrees off conventional wisdom is going to puzzle David Gergen.

It catches my eye that this conference was secret, etc. At the 1980 Convention of the APA in Montreal, two giants in psychology, H. J. Eysenck of the UK and B. F. Skinner or the US were brought together in a meeting apparently deliberately scheduled as a "reception" for Skinner but understood to be a private debate between "nature" (Eysenck) and "nurture" (Skiner). By prior written agreement, Eysenck was to go first but at the last moment before the gavel was raised, Skinner whispered a request to Eysenck to be permitted to go first. Eysenck agreed. Then Skinner for the first time in his career made a kind of "nolo contender" plea, as it were, re the emphasis given by Eysenck (and the London School) to genetic constraints upon human behavior--i.e, he contested very little of Eysenck's views but rather suggested it all might be sidestepped (?) Well, Eysenck remarked that Skinner's concessions rather "took the wind out of my sails" and the collapsed debate turned into a discussion of "side street" issues. Papers were released about these "side street" issues but now 34 years after the rather private event, no one seems to have heard an audio tape of Skinner's "nolo contender" initial statement or to have seen a full and exact written transcript of it. It has all been "depublished" (a neologism introduced in 1996 to "explain" the withdrawal of Chris Brand's book about "g" and public policies ). Indeed, it seems wise to make meetings highly secret, but perhaps yet one can avoid sending utterances down the Memory Hole. ???

With respect to the "evaporated" debate/discussion between H. J. Eysenck and B. F. Skinner at the Montreal 1980 APA Convention: Eysenck makes brief mention of this in the first edition of his autobiography (Rebel with a Cause) and it is clear he came to debate Skinner and by prior written agreement. He had read thoroughly into all of Skinner's published corpus. Thus Skinner's "nolo contendere" position of not contesting much of the British (London School) view of the importance of genes upon human behavior was very surprising to Eysenck and very important, as up to about 1977 Skinner had been content (publicly at least ) to nurture a Blank Slate persona. This "debate" in 1980 is mentioned in the New York Times obit for Skinner, BTW. Apparently more mention of it was made to the NYT for obit purposes by one of the psychologists who helped "shape" the private "debate", but these addenda were not used in the obit.It is unclear whether APA was behind any expurgation of Skinner's "nolo contendere" remarks? Protecting a debate from disruption etc. by scheduling it as a "reception" might well have been a legal pretext by APA (?) to send the gene wise Skinner back to PC oblivion???

With respect to the oddly "vaporized" debate in September 1980 between B. F. Skinner and H.J. Eysenck (at theMontreal APA Convention ), SybilEysenck affirms in an email that she is aware of the event but has no record of it. She was not asked for her recollection of it or of her late husband's account of it. Prof. Frank Farley affirms that he organized the event (probably with considerable help from the late Charles Spielberger?) but has not had the time to retrieve the papers, records, etc. Prof. Farley has had an exceptionally active and fertile career and getting it allextracted from the past would be laborious and time consuming. The parsimonious assumption is that the beginning lead off speech by Skinner (see first ed. of Eysenck's autobiography) madeclear that he Skinner had little dispute with the science advanced by the London School but differed in his own sense that it need not be nearly as practically important as London School adherents (e.g. Eysenck and associates ) assumed it to be. But it is indeed a gaping issuethat for 34 years Skinner's confrontation with the science ofEysenck , Spearman, Burt, et al.is ink blot ambiguous. The Memory Hole acrobatics in all of it is even more interesting than whatever the hell Skinner actually said.

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